A novel phase-noise-suppressed and delay-time-tunable mode-locked erbium-doped fiber laser

Abstract

A phase-noise-suppressed and delay-time-tunable actively mode-locked erbium-doped fiber ring laser is demonstrated by using voltage-controlled and frequency-discriminated phase shifter as an inherent timing module. By changing the voltage from -3.35 to 3.6 V, the maximum tuning range of phase and delay-time of 500 MHz optical pulse-train from the laser can be up to 340degrees (similar to1.9pi) and 1.9 ns (nearly 1 period), respectively. Optimized responsivity and tuning deviation are 0.27 ps/mV and less than or equal to 4%. The single-sided-band phase the laser operated at feedback controlled mode is significantly reduced to -100 dBc/Hz (measured at frequency of 10 kHz offset from center), which is at least 10 dB smaller than that of the laser operated at free-running mode. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.